A Trust Betrayed by Mike Magner Read Free Book Online Page B

pumping station at Holcomb Boulevard, they discovered a fuel line leaking directly into a water tank, sending fuel throughout the system, including the tap water in the chief of staff’s quarters. If that didn’t get the attention of base commanders, nothing would.
    Utility operators at the base, assuming that after LANTDIV ’s December 6 report all the contaminated wells in the Hadnot Point system had been discovered and removed from service, shut down the Holcomb Boulevard system and replaced it with water from Hadnot Point, using a tie-in line that connected the two systems.The Hadnot Point water would be pumped into both systems for more than a week until the Holcomb Boulevard lines were flushed.
    After several days of pumping from Hadnot Point, tests were conducted on water samples taken from taps throughout the Holcomb Boulevard system to make sure the fuel contamination was disappearing. What was found in samples pulled from drinking-water fountains at the Berkeley Manor Elementary School on January 31, 1985, was shocking: the solvent TCE was measured at more than 1,100 parts per billion.
    The solvent had to be coming from the Hadnot Point system, and sure enough, another contaminated well was discovered there that had not been tested earlier. This one, located near an old dumpsite, would show levels of TCE at a whopping 18,900 parts per billion, DCE at more than 8,000 ppb, and PCE at around 400 ppb. Considering that three other contaminated wells were now shut down in Hadnot Point, and more than 1,000 ppb of TCE were still being found in a school’s drinking water because of this one well, it can only be assumed that levels of TCE in the drinking water from the Hadnot Point system may have been even higher when all four contaminated wells were online.
    By now, all the top officials at Camp Lejeune knew they had a very serious problem that required immediate action. The results of tests conducted on all wells at the base rolled in during February and March, and a dozen wells had to be removed from service owing to the presence of volatile organic compounds: one in the Rifle Range system; one in the New River system serving the air station; two at Tarawa Terrace primarily containing PCE , the solvent that had leaked from ABC Cleaners; and eight in the Hadnot Point system containing benzene, TCE , and other VOC s. 8
    As expected, the well closures posed a difficult supply problem for the base managers. The loss of two wells at Tarawa Terrace, which had about 6,000 residents at the time, meant they would beshort about 300,000 gallons per day during the spring and summer months when water was in highest demand, according to a March 1, 1985, memo by the assistant chief of staff for facilities at Camp Lejeune, Colonel M. G. Lilley. Lilley outlined seven different options for replacing the water, including having it hauled in by tanker trucks at a cost of about $2,000 a day or building a new well at Tarawa Terrace for about $80,000. Lilley also noted that the two contaminated wells could be turned on when needed “to maintain adequate water levels” at no cost to the base, but he warned that “the potential health hazards must be weighed against the need and cost of providing water from other sources.” 9
    It was ultimately decided that an auxiliary line would be built connecting the Holcomb Boulevard system to the Tarawa Terrace area. The line was to be completed by June 1985.
    Meanwhile, Lilley began preparing a defense for not taking action years earlier when tests showed the presence of solvents in the water at Hadnot Point and Tarawa Terrace. Julian Wooten, the longtime environmental manager at Camp Lejeune who was demoted when engineer Bob Alexander arrived in the early 1980s, was assigned to write what was later described by critics of the base management as a “cover your ass” memo in March 1985. Wooten was told to contact Paul Hubbell, a top civilian official at Marine Corps